For the Price of a San Francisco Condo, You Can Buy a 400-Acre Historic Marshland Retreat

A 400-acre marsh property which has served as hunter's have for more than a century has hit the market for $1.5 million.

Concord Farms Duck Club in Suisun City, CA consists of a 16-bedroom, three-bathroom clubhouse.

“It’s just a place where these guys can go out and shoot ducks. It's been going on for like 100 years plus,” explains listing agent John Ward with California Outdoor Properties.

He adds that the hunters take boats out to duck blinds in the marsh where they wait.

"You have your duck call and your shotgun, and you start blowing your whistle or your duck call, and hopefully some birds come in.”

Ward says there are about 160 duck clubs in the Suisun Marsh area, with many of them dating back more than a hundred years. Hunters buy memberships in the clubs.

“There's just kind of a changing of the guard a little bit now with some of the older guys just getting older,” Ward says.

“[With] this particular club, the members took a vote and decided whether they were going to make an effort to try to get new blood into the club, or [if] they were all kind of ready to hand the torch to the next group. So, they just decided to sell the property.”

The property consists of a 16-bedroom and three bathroom clubhouse, a building which has its own history.

“It's basically an old barge. They had crews that came in 100 years ago to help build the levees and do a lot of the work out there,” he explains. “So some of these barges turned into duck club houses because they built the levees around them. The men back 100 years ago used those [barges] for their quarters to sleep at night.”

That clubhouse is where the hunters gather after they reach their limit of seven ducks.

“They'll take their boat back to the club and then make a make a breakfast or a brunch or whatever, and then usually the guys just kind of hang out in the club, and watch college football, watch the NFL, or whatever they want to watch, and it's usually just kind of a hang [out place].”

The building has a basic kitchen and other somewhat rustic gathering spaces.

“There's nothing super special. There's just a bed and some hooks and stuff and a small closet to hang up your jackets and your hunting gear,” he says. “They're just pretty basic. There's nothing glamorous.

While the clubhouse could use some TLC and a bit of deferred maintenance, there isn’t much a buyer could do to the outside of it or to surrounding land.

“The marsh is protected and it's definitely in a conservation easement. You can build right where that clubhouse is. You could totally redo the house, but you have to keep that footprint of the house,” he explained, adding all of the old duck clubs are grandfathered into to current regulations.

The property is about 1.5 hours from San Francisco, 19 miles from Suisun City and on Van Sickle Island in the south side of the Grizzly Island Wildlife Area, an ecologically rich wetland area known for big and small game, many species of birds, fishing, hiking, and more.

“There could just be somebody that wants to buy it and is a bird watcher. You don't have to be a duck hunter,” Ward says. “You can do whatever you want… You could buy and have the intention of bird watching and fishing, or to ride your ATVs and your quads around. But this particular property has been used for 100 years as a duck club.”

For the price, Ward says someone from the Bay Area could easily buy the place.

“$1.5 million in San Francisco gets you a condo. $1.5 million out here gets you 400 acres with 16 bedrooms and lots of elbow room and a place to exhale,” he says. “[The buyer] could be an individual or it could be just a group of guys. It could be four or five guys that like to shoot, and they buy it and have the opportunity to sell a couple more memberships or something like that.”

As for the people who say it’s bad to hunt, Ward has this response.

“Private duck clubs have been an integral part of the Suisun Marsh, helping preserve its open space and character and protect thousands of acres of wetlands from development,” he explains.

“What the anti-hunter community doesn't realize is that the reason the marsh is still there and natural and doesn’t have a city over it is because of the duck hunters. The hunting community saved the marsh from being developed.”